Dear everybody,
The subject mentioned above refers to the paper by Lars Orrhage 'On the
innervation and homologues of the anterior end appendages of the Eunicea
(Polychaeta), with a tentative outline of the fundamental constitution of
the cephalic nervous system of the polychaetes', Acta Zool. 76:229-248,
1995. In this paper Orrhage showed that the previously referred to
'ventrolateral antennae' or 'anterior lateral antennae' are homologous with
palps, and the 'palps' (frontal palps nd labial palps) are part of the
alimentary canal and thus represent dorsal and ventral buccal lips. I have
been admiring his work for a long time and think this is a great paper.
Presently I am trying to incorporate his conclusions into a revised
terminology of the Onuphidae and have run into some difficulties. I have no
problems calling the previous 'anterior lateral antennae' palps. Although
it does not come easy to call structures that have the same appearance (as
in this case the previous five antennae) by different names. However, I
find it really difficult to refer to 'dorsal buccal lips' that are nowhere
near the mouth and to 'ventral buccal lips' that are above the mouth. And
what should we call the structure that I labelled 'lower lip' (Paxton
1986:fig. 3)? Common sense suggests that the 'upper lip' is above the mouth
and the 'lower lip' is below. Where would we be if we used strictly
homologous terms for instance in the mammal ear structures?
I am inviting your comments on whether we should acknowledge the homology of
the structures but continue the terminology as in use now, accept the
suggestions of Orrhage, or come up with new terms?
What are your opinions?
Best regards, Hannelore P.
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Hannelore Paxton
School of Biological Sciences
Macquarie University
Sydney N.S.W. 2109
Tel.: 61.2.8508162
Fax : 61.2.8508245
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<HPAXTON at rna.bio.mq.edu.au>